Lee Suggests A Peace Offensive

Prior to invading the North during the Gettysburg campaign, General Robert E. Lee wrote to President Davis suggesting that the Confederacy reach out to the growing peace movement in the North.  He emphasized that the Confederates should not shun the portion of the peace movement that wanted the Union restored peacefully.  This letter of course demonstrates the grand strategy behind the incursion into Pennsylvania.  Defeat the Army of the Potomac decisively north of the Potomac, and anti-war forces in the North  would have received a shot in the arm.  As it was, the Gettysburg campaign coincided with anti-draft riots in New York.  If Gettysburg had been a  Union defeat instead of a victory, I can easily imagine anti-draft riots spreading to other Northern cities.

Lee’s peace offensive in such circumstances may well have set in motion forces that would have overwhelmed Lincoln’s carrying on of the war, or made his re-election in 1864 an impossibility.  Lee was a soldier of genius, but as this letter indicates, he also was very shrewd outside of the purely military realm.  One wonders how the Confederacy would have fared if Lee, instead of Davis, had been President of the Confederacy .  Lee’s letter of June 10, 1863 to Davis:

Jefferson Davis on Secession

 

Jefferson Davis often wrote about Secession, especially after the War, when he dedicated the remainder of his life to defending the memory of the Confederacy.  His two volume The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government is basically a lengthy defense of Secession.  The most concise treatment of his views on Secession was contained in his farewell address to the Senate on January 21, 1861.  His defense of the right of Secession boils down to one word:  sovereignty.  The states, even those created, like Mississippi, under the Union, are sovereign and may therefore leave the Union anytime they please.  Davis on Secession:

Jefferson Finis Davis-Abraham Lincoln-Parallel Lives

Jefferson F. Davis, one and only President of the Confedracy, always acted from the highest principles and always did only what he thought right.  His tragedy is that he had the greatest difficulty in understanding that those who opposed him throughout his life could also be acting from the highest principles and doing what they thought was right.  Davis is too often perceived as a two-dimensional character.  To his detractors he is viewed as a defender of slavery and thus evil incarnate.  To his admirers, especially his neo-Confederate admirers, he is a champion of small, constitutional government and his stance on slavery is of little importance.  Both views are completely mistaken.  Davis was a complicated man living in complicated times.  He was also a man of formidable talents who came very close to bringing off, against overwhelming odds, the birth of a new nation.  In future blog articles I will be exploring  aspects of the career and personality of Davis,  tied in with similar posts on Lincoln, his nemesis.  I announce this intention as we approach the anniversary of the birth of Lincoln on February 12, because I think a comparative study of the lives of these two men can be a tool to a greater understanding of them both.  Much more to come over the next year or so.